Sherry Olsen
Mural Artist
Sherry Olsen was born into a Norwegian-American family of carpenters in Los Angeles, California. She began drawing and painting at the age of three. Traveling and apprenticing much of her young adult life, she has done printmaking in Hamburg, glasswork in Paris and Metal work in Kiklenny Ireland. Her talents are as worldly as her artisanal training has been. Working in a variety of mediums including drawing, printmaking, ceramics and painting, Sherry manages to translate into her art, a sense of being grounded, earthly, and full of plenty. She’s exactly what one would expect from a modern-day Renaissance woman.
Marta Salas-Porras (“the indefatigable Marta,” as Sherry calls her) is a designer with the artistic oeuvre of the same caliber as Sherry. Driven by the Bardessono spirit of collaboration among artists, Marta joined forces with Sherry to complete her design vision for the dining room at the hotel. Over the course of eleven days, Sherry outlined shapes and lines, filling in the 41-by-6-foot long wall space with her subtle palate of water based paints for what would become a grand scale mural. It was an artistic feat that culminated and almost literally "grew" into a spectacular fantasy of larger than life olive trees bursting with the orbs of their fruit. As Sherry puts it, she wanted the mural to be “personal” and “painterly.” Truthfully, it is both. As much as the work conjures real life olive trees growing about the property, it also invites moods and simple pleasures -- the perfect compliments to enjoying a good meal.
Sherry has designed specially commissioned pieces for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs at the Louvre in Paris, and now Bardessono, in Yountville, California. Among her long term clients, Barney’s (New York), Miller et Bertaux (Paris), Farmers Table (Tokyo), and The Gardener (Berkeley), are just a few. Between Marta’s refined upholstery selections and Sherry’s painted “olive dream,” the Bardessono dining room is aglow. Like many treasures at the Bardessono, the mural reminds us of being amidst the beauty and bounty that is the Napa Valley.